Balloon Animals
Balloon animals are created by twisting or modeling balloons in the most fanciful of ways; there are actually people who often turn this balloon art into a way of living, they are known as twisters, clowns or restaurant entertainers. Depending on the complexity of the balloon animals, single or multiple balloon twisting is involved. The set of challenges and skills specific for each of these modeling levels can be highly entertaining from the intellectual point of view, and many balloon animals enthusiasts take this art form as a very rewarding hobby. For the making of balloon animals, one or more balloons could be needed together with simple or more complex “weaving” techniques.
To understand the extent at which the twisting phenomenon has reached, it suffices to say that even specialized vocabulary has been developed to described the techniques used for balloon animals making or balloon sculptures. Some twisters inflate balloons by means of manual or electric pumps, others use their lungs as another proof of their skill. Helium is rarely used for such balloons, since twisting requires too porous materials for the helium to stay trapped inside. Therefore, plain air is the best environment for twisting balloon animals that will not break or deflate in a couple of hours.
Balloon animals require the use of very colorful balloons, most of them pencil-shaped. The standard size for these items is two inches in diameter and sixty in length, but balloon animals could also be modeled from dozens of other balloon varieties. Professional twisters usually go for Qualatex balloon brand that provide quality products with long-term resistance and great usage flexibility. If there aren't too many differences possible in terms of color choice, the shapes surely vary from one manufacturer to another. The other element that would make a difference in creating unique balloon animals is the selection of the inflating device.
Balloon animals are actually made from a skilled alternation of isolated bubbles that result from several twists and rotations. There is a whole set of rules and tricks that allow for the bubbles to be joined or locked together so that the balloon animals may not resume their initial shape. Some twisters even speak of “security locks” when referring to the joining of the bubbles in the balloon animals: this is how to head, the ears and the body peculiarities get artistically represented. Balloon modeling enthusiasts can learn new tricks all the time as there are plenty of online instructions to teach you how to make countless of animal models.